After Barden
by Stuckinmycocoon
Summary: Chloe worries that they'll lose touch after graduation, and determines to be the glue that keeps them together if that is what is needed. These are short, yearly drabbles from Chloe's perspective about what happens in the five years after the Bellas all graduate, during which Beca plays a big role. Canon compliant through PP2.
1. The Last Month of College

_Disclaimer: I don't own Pitch Perfect._

 _Author's Note: So the idea for this story came when I was reading chapter 10 of Redlance-ck's "Experimentation" (which you should check out) and Chloe worries about what will happen when they all leave Barden. Then it mixed with some stuff going on in my life as I was trying to fall asleep in the wee hours of the morning (unsuccessfully, I might add), and these little drabbles came out of that. (Also, though it is inspired by that fic, this story is canon is through PP2, and does not follow that plotline.) Read and review, please?_

* * *

 **The last month of college**

Chloe knew that a lot of people, after they graduate college, don't keep in touch with their college friends anymore. She also knew, with absolute certainty, that she would not let that happen. Not to her, not to any of the Bellas. And especially not with her and Beca, despite the fact that Beca was still pushing to move to L.A. immediately after graduation.

But Chloe couldn't complain too much. After all, she was moving back to Florida herself. To her father's house in Tampa. It felt odd going back, because her parents had gotten divorced during her third year at Barden and neither had kept the house she grew up in. It had become the thing to do after graduation, after all, in this economy, unless you were in STEM, going to grad school, or being a music producer (or so Beca tells her. And she knows Beca will rock it.) She already had a job lined up - bartending - and a volunteer gig teaching underprivileged children how to sing. It would be fun, and would hopefully pad her resume since seven years as a Barden Bella apparently doesn't lead to many job interviews. But she could always rock karaoke night at the bar, the same karaoke night that she started three years during summer break. (It helped knowing people when you needed a job. And the bar was quite close to her father's house, which was the main reason she was staying with him and not her mother.)

Goodbyes were tearful at the Bella house. Everyone was going off and doing their own thing except Emily, who had to audition and train the new Bellas all on her own. Chloe made sure Emily knew that she could always call her if she needed any help, any at all. Also, Stacie was staying in Atlanta, and so could drop by whenever to help Emily run things. All the Bellas promised to email, text, Skype, chat, etc, even Beca. Chloe made sure of that, even though Beca rolled her eyes at her. But Chloe was going to make sure that they were not going to be the kind of people who lost touch with each other after college.


	2. The First Year

**The First Year**

Chloe settled into her bartending with a fair amount of ease. Years of mixing drinks at parties had prepared her surprisingly well, and it suited her outgoing personality. Also, the tips were good. It was just about enough to move out on, but after a long discussion with her mother and a separate one with her father, she decided to save instead for a year and see where she was at. Sure, bartending wasn't all fun and games, like the times she had to clean up vomit, or the people who threatened her when she cut them off but she could usually flirt her way out of any mess. Except for the one time when that one man almost….better not think about the bad stuff and he was banned from coming back anyway.

She really enjoyed her volunteer work at the afterschool program. The elementary school she was working at didn't have the money for a music program, or to pay the salary of a music teacher, or to buy any instruments. Fortunately, with a background in a cappella, Chloe didn't need instruments to make music. She started an a cappella choir, and the kids loved it.

She gushed about it when she talked about it to the other Bellas. She bragged to Emily how her kids' choir could beat Emily's Bellas. She reminisced with CR about being that old and being in a kids' choir. She told Stacie that it was almost like being part of the Bellas again, like she never truly left. Aubrey called her their fearless leader, and said she could lead them to ICCAs, if only they were in college. Fat Amy wanted to know if they needed a mascot, if only she were back in the States. And Beca helped her come up with setlists over Skype, and it almost felt like they were back in the Bella house, doing it together for all those years.

She heard about Beca's conquests in L.A. too. How she started DJing at small clubs before getting bigger gigs. How her contacts at Residual Heat in Atlanta finally paid off in getting her a job with a producer in L.A. and how it only took seven months, with a Beca-patented eye roll. And Chloe was really happy for Beca. She knew she could do it. She was really going somewhere.

And that is why she wasn't upset when Beca started to get slower to respond to emails, and how she didn't have time to Skype as much anymore, leaving Chloe to manage the setlists on her own in the last months. But no matter, she had an excellent teacher in mash-ups after all.


	3. The Second Year

**The Second Year**

Towards the beginning of her second summer after graduating Barden, Chloe finally got a good job offer. An inner city school in New York City offered her a position running their music program that they had just gotten the funding to restart. It was perfect. She was sad to leave her Florida kids, but she was sure to leave them in good hands and she promised to be available if they ever needed help. She also said goodbye and thanks to her bartending job, and found herself a tiny apartment in NYC to move into at the end of the summer. The Bellas were all thrilled for her, many of them asking if they could come visit.

It was more difficult than she thought. She was lonely in the big city, and had trouble making fast friends for the first time in her life. It seemed like the New Yorkers just weren't that friendly of a people. But Chloe was nothing if not persistent, and soon enough, she found people to hang out with.

Her students were also different from what she expected. Her Florida students were always so bright and cheerful and happy to be there. They wanted to learn everything she had to teach them, to hear every story she could tell them. Her New York students tolerated her, and it took a lot of persistence to get that much from them. Chloe had never failed anything she put her mind to in her life (Russian literature didn't count because that was failed on purpose), but she felt like she was failing here.

Aubrey came for a long weekend, as did Stacie and CR, and those were three of the best times she had all year. But the best, by far, was the week Beca came. And it was like they never parted, so Chloe didn't care so much that it was hard for Beca to find time to talk to her once a month, or that one of the emails she sent Beca didn't get a response for three months. Beca was busy, but they were still friends. If they could reconnect like this, then maybe it didn't matter how often they talked. And Beca was doing so well in her professional life, that Chloe didn't even really want to tell her how dismally she was doing in her own. So she didn't.

And when the school didn't renew her contract the following year, she played it off like it was her own choice, and returned to Tampa and her father's house.

(At least she got to see the ICCAs again. And the Bellas won, not that she had any doubt of that.)


	4. The Third Year

**The Third Year**

It was much different going back this time, having lived independently in NYC for the last year. Her father sometimes seemed to forget that she was no longer a child, and began always asking her about where she going and when she'd be back. He seemed to worry more, and she couldn't understand why. She went back to her job at the bar (thank God!) and volunteered again at the afterschool program. But it was clearly in another director's hands now, and thriving, and after the glorious welcome she received when she first arrived and their enthusiasm the first few times she showed up after that, she began to feel more like an honored guest that was beginning to wear out her welcome than an active part of the group. She started dropping in less frequently, saying she was too busy even though she really wasn't.

It began to be harder and harder to talk to the Bellas about her life, since theirs' seemed to be going in a much better direction than her's was at the moment. Not that she wasn't optimistic for the future, and making plans. But in the conversations she still make sure to have with them regularly, she questioned them about their lives, gossiped about the others, and mostly avoided talking about her own. CR was settling into married life and was picked up by a small label. Stacie's career as a journalist was climbing. Fat Amy and Bumper had married. And divorced. Lilly was doing who knows what who knows where. Her texts, for she never communicated any other way, were short and cryptic. And Emily was a senior herself, leading the Bellas to championship after championship. How could she be a senior already? Had Chloe really been out of school that long? And with so little to show for herself?

And Beca's star rose faster than them all, and with it, her communication abilities seemed to disappear altogether. During the entire year, they only spoke five times, and Chloe's emails and texts consistently went unanswered, or were replied to months later. So when Chloe finally did get a hold of Beca, it was a month before she was scheduled to move to L.A. herself. Chloe was doing what she knew best; she was going back to school. It wasn't even grad school, but she had applied and gotten into California State University Northridge to study music therapy. With her degree from Barden, it would take her about two years to finish the program. And it helped that she thought she had finally found her calling.


	5. The Fourth Year

**The Fourth Year**

The music therapy program at CSUN was all that she had dreamed about and more. The classes were only on Tuesday and Thursdays, and with her resume, she got a local job bartending to pay the bills. Despite being older than most of her classmates, she got along super well with them. And one of them helped her find part-time volunteer work tutoring inner city high schoolers in voice, which led to her becoming the (unpaid) assistant director of their Glee Club. It was fan-freakin'-tastic. Or the tits, as she used to say.

Now she had something to talk about with the other Bellas during their calls. Emily was out in the world and trying to make it as a singer/songwriter. Chloe invited her to L.A. to try her luck, if she wanted. Aubrey was engaged to some Fortune 500 CEO that she met at the Lodge of Falling Leaves. And everybody else was happy and doing normal things, as far as she could tell. Yes, maybe they didn't all talk every month as they planned upon leaving the Bella house, but she at least got a text back once a month and usually a phone conversation at least every other month. They were planning a huge get together for their five year reunion the following year, which was planned for after the Barden school year ended, so that they could take over the Bella house again and bond with (or terrify) any of the new Bellas who were staying over the summer. And both Aubrey and Emily were invited, even though it technically wasn't their five year reunion.

But Beca, despite being in the same city, was the hardest one for Chloe to get a hold of. Texts of 'I have the afternoon tomorrow free, wanna grab some coffee?' went unanswered. Phone calls went to voicemail. Emails took months to return. And Beca was never on Skype anymore. That year, despite living less than forty minutes from each other (and that was timed with traffic!), Chloe saw Beca only twice.

The first time was great. They caught up on old stuff and Beca gave Chloe the rundown on all the famous people she worked with and what her killer schedule was really like. And Chloe felt instantly contrite. Beca hadn't just been ignoring her. She just really was that busy. But the second time, months later, things seemed different. Beca seemed different, so wrapped up in her life and seeming so far from Barden and Chloe in her old life. And Chloe knew that she was the last of the Bellas that Beca still stayed in touch with at all. She didn't know if she should feel thrilled by that, or if it was because she was simply pushing too hard. But that's what friends do, right? And friends are supposed to make time for each other, right?

She knew Beca didn't do feelings, and she had to wonder, after so many tries, if this wasn't Beca's way of telling that she didn't want her old life around anymore. That she didn't want Chloe around any more. They were living in the same city, and communicating less than ever before. But Chloe didn't know if she could let go. In all that time, she had never had a serious relationship, still thinking about the small brunette and the might-have-beens.


	6. The Fifth Year

**The Fifth Year**

She took a month off over the summer and visited her parents in Florida and Aubrey in Georgia, and met Brad, Aubrey's fiance. Her month overlapped with Aubrey and Brad's wedding, in which she was the maid of honor.

When she returned in the fall, it was the second year of her music therapy program, and it was going great. Her teachers were pleased, her fellow students pleasant, and her extracurriculars fun. And best of all, the Bella's fifth year reunion was coming up in June, and Chloe's mandatory six month internship for her degree started a week after the reunion was over. Perfect timing, all around, and she was thrilled to find out that she had gotten one of the better placements.

The only thing that would have made it more thrilling would be if Beca had RSVP'd yet to the reunion. Everybody else had, including Aubrey and Emily. But when she had last talked to Beca it had been February, and all the brunette had said on the topic was, "God, Chloe, I told you. I'll go if I can. I'm sorry, but I've just been super busy", and it was now June.

As Chloe stood in the airport, waiting to board her flight to Atlanta, she scanned the airport. It was a long shot, but it would be a movie-perfect moment if Beca happened to be flying out at the same time. But her life wasn't a movie, and as far as she could tell, Beca still hated them.

She only knew one thing for certain. If Beca came to the reunion, she was going to summon her courage and they were going to have a long talk. About the future. And what friendship meant. And about where their friendship was going in the future. She didn't want to have that conversation, didn't want to risk Beca saying "nowhere", but she couldn't exist in this limbo anymore.

As she settled into her airplane seat for the long flight, she popped her earbuds in and put the settings on 'random'. Music had gotten her through everything in her life; it was going to get her through this too. But the irony was that the first song that came on was the first mix Beca had made her. Or maybe it wasn't so ironic. Her iPhone was filled with Beca's music and very little else.

* * *

 _Author's Note: I'm sorry for any typos and if the story wasn't much good. I'm finishing this off at about 5 in the morning due to my insomnia._

 _And this is where we end. For now, I'll leave you to fill in the blanks on what happens at the reunion. Maybe you've experienced something like this too, and want to go off that, or write yourself a better ending. (If you want to talk about it, leave a review or PM me.) Maybe in the future, I'll think about writing a sequel where we see the reunion. I can see it going two ways, one happy and one sad, and it will depend totally on my frame of mind when I write it, if I do write it, what happens. Or, maybe you'd like to be inspired by this and write the reunion scene yourself?_


End file.
